o run riot over meaning. No everlasting person
can ever have become part of the past if you think of it. He goes on to
say that the boy has had twopence and is to come back for fourpence in
an hour, or threepence if you can see the gas-lamps, because then
a link will be superfluous. Sally recognises the boy more than ever.

"I wonder," she says, "if he's waiting outside. Because the party of
the house might allow him inside. Do you think I could ask, mother?"

"You might _try_, kitten," is the reply, not given sanguinely. And
Sally goes off, benevolent. "Even when your trousers are tied up with
string, a fog's a fog," says she to herself.

"I knoo our friend Lund first of all...." Thus the Major, nodding
towards the bedroom door.... "Why, God bless my soul, ma'am, I knew
Lund first of all, forty-six years ago in Delhi. Forty--six--years!
And all that time, if you believe me, he's been the same obstinate
moole. Never takin' a precaution about anythin', nor listening to
a word of advice!" This is about as far as he can go without a choke.
Rosalind goes into the next room to get a tumbler of water. The nurse,
who is sitting by the fire, nods towards the bed, and Rosalind goes
close to it to hear. "What is it, dear?" She speaks to the invalid
as to a little child.

"Isn't that Old Jack choking? I know his choke. What does he come out
for in weather like this? What does he mean? Send him back.... No,
send him in here." The nurse puts in a headshake as protest. But for
all that, Sally finds, when she returns, that the two veterans are
contending together against their two enemies, bronchitis and asthma,
with the Intelligence Department sadly interrupted, and the enemy in
possession of all the advantageous points.

"He oughtn't to try to talk," says Rosalind. "But he will." She and
Sally and the nurse sit on in the fog-bound front room. The gas-lights
have no heart in them, and each wears a nimbus. Rosalind wishes Gerry
would return, aloud. Sally is buoyant about him; _he's_ all right,
trust _him_! What about the everlasting young beggar?

"I persuaded Mrs. Kindred," says Sally. "And we looked outside for him,
and he'd gone."

"Fancy a woman being named Kindred!"

"When people are so genteel one can believe anything! But what do you
think the boy's name is?... Chancellorship! Isn't that queer? She knows
him--says he's always about in the neighbourhood. He sleeps in the
mews behind Great Toff House."

Her mother isn'